This document describes a proposed multi-sided platform called Open for Business (OFB) that would help organizations become more environmentally and socially sustainable. OFB would combine open, industry, and proprietary firm-level data to benchmark sustainability performance, identify risks and improvement areas, and provide access to expertise. It would target industries, buyers, the public sector, and knowledge providers. The platform aims to reduce risks, facilitate compliance, enhance social legitimacy, and improve bottom lines for data-providing organizations. Proposed next steps include partnering with academic, governmental, and non-profit organizations to identify issues and expand available data. Prototypes of the platform have been developed using Python, Mapbox, Leaflet.js, Flask

1. Open for Business
CftB
Team Members:
Richard Adams
Liam Bolton
Eléonore Mayola
Andrew Schofield

2. ~ 1973
September 29, 2001
September 26, 2002
September 23, 2003
September 20, 2004
September 17, 2005
September 14, 2006
September 11, 2007
September 8, 2008
September 5, 2009
September 2, 2010
August 29, 2011
August 26, 2012
August 23, 2013
August 20, 2014
June 30, 2030 ~ 2050
Sources:
footprintnetwork.org
en.wikipedia.org
The Problem Being Addressed

3. The Problem Being Addressed: BaU to BnaU
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4. Validation
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• How can organizations become and be more environmentally and
socially sustainable?
• Innovating for sustainability: A systematic review of the body of knowledge
• Report, Executive summary, webinars, workshops, conferences
• Conceptual foundation for series of Sustainable Innovation
Laboratories
• 2x academic journal papers
• Short-listed for CIM management article of the year 2014
• Evidence submitted to the All Party Parliamentary Group on
Management Commission on the future of management
• Competing solutions
• AMEE
• Caelus Consulting
• Green Plus
• Green Pulse Check
• Green Enterprise Movement
• Strategic Sustainability Consulting
• Futureway Australia
• Greener Gateway
• PWC

5. The Solution
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A multi-sided platform that brings together open data, industry data and
proprietary firm level data to help firms become more environmentally and
socially sustainable:
• Identify their environmental and social sustainability performance
• Benchmark against similar others
• Identify risk areas (e.g. compliance) and targets for improvement
• Access knowledge and expertise to address challenge areas
• Enhance social legitimacy and licence to operate
• Bottom line impact
• Change for the Better

6. Target user or customer
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• Industry – initially SMEs, corporations (for expertise pool)
• Buyers – decision aid for organisational or individual buyers
• Public sector – policy and procurement
• Knowledge providers – academic community, consultancy, NGOs

7. The Datasets Used
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• AMEE (EDX)
• Energy consumption for selected Bristol buildings from smart
meters by half hour (Bristol City Council) (EDX)
• Companies House
• International Standards Office (ISO 14001)
• Multiple others, eg:
• DEFRA’s Survey of public attitudes and behaviours
towards the environment (EDX);
• DEFRA’s UK-AIR: Air Information Resource - automatic
and non automatic monitoring data (EDX)
• But there are challenges: format and content
• Supplement with user-provided data

8. Monetisation & Value
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VP1 - Firm level data. Free to use by data owner
• Reduce risk; facilitate compliance; track, monitor, improve internal & external
performance
VP2 – Opportunity to enhance social legitimacy. Free to use by data owner
• Top & most improved ‘E’ firms in country, region, sector
• Licence to operate
VP3 - Aggregated data. Pay per use & subscription
• Benchmark; assess performance against similar others; identify opportunities for
improvement
VP4 - Consulting tools. Commoditisation and pay per use
• Off the shelf and bespoke training, coaching & transformational packages
VP5 - Multisided platform. Affiliate model
• Knowledge broker to solution providers (academic, consulting, NGOs)
VP6 - Environmental and social sustainability: win-win

9. Potential partners / channels and next steps
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• Challenge of scaling up
• Multi sided platform knowledge broking with academic and consulting
community
• NGOs & GOs: e.g. UNEP, WWF, WBCSD, Environment Agency for
issues identification and data
• Proprietary data sources: e.g. Government, Commercial data sets,
National censuses etc
• Lobbying to extend and enhance existing datasets

10. The system
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Data sources
Registered
Businesses
EDX Data
Other Open Data
Fee Based Data
OFB
Standardised data
Data
Transformation
Engine
S
t
a
n
d
a
r
d
i
s
e
d
D
a
t
a
Open For
Business™
Dashboard
Users
Registered
Businesses
Public Sector
Procurement
Public Sector
Policy
Experts
(Academia,
Consultants)
Public
Data
Persistence

11. The Technology
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Data sources
API Data Streams
OFB User populated
OFB Static datasets
As JSON data
Web
Engine
Flask
Python
Mapbox
Leaflet.js
Hosting -
Heroku
GUI Design /
Implementation
Precursorapp
Tableau
Bootstrap
IPython Notebook
Data
Persistence
TBD

12. The Prototypes
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13. The Prototypes
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14. The Prototypes
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15. The Prototypes
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Eleonore Mayola
@EleonoreMayola Mar 21
Using AMEE api for
companies sustainability
scores data with Python
and cartodb! #edxhack
http://cdb.io/1MYuPdX

16. Thank you
© 2014 Gabriella Karney Photography